The present invention relates generally to systems and methods that provide for dipole moment detection and localization, and more particularly, to systems and methods that provide for dipole moment detection and localization using synthetic aperture array.
Conventional magnetic anomaly detection systems employ proximity detection of a magnetic dipole. Typical of this type of system is the well known airborne magnetic anomaly detection system that is towed by a P3 aircraft, for example. In this system, detection is performed using a single sensor to detect a change in the total local magnetic field. The disadvantage of this approach is the limited amount data generated by the system, in that it provides for no dipole direction, no dipole orientation, gross localization and the system has relatively low processing gain.
To overcome the limitations of such conventional magnetic anomaly detection systems, an improved dipole moment detector and localizer system assigned to the assignee of the present invention is disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 07/616,158, filed Nov. 20, 1990 now U.S. Pat. No. 5,239,474. In this dipole moment detector and localizer system, the detection and localization is accomplished using the outputs from a fixed vector-magnetometer array. The dipole moment detector and localizer described in this patent application has yielded dramatic performance improvement over the current magnetic anomally detection (MAD) systems that use a single sensor to detect a change in the total local magnetic field derived from a dipole.
Thus, it would be an improvement in the art to have a system and method that provides dipole detection and the localization and orientation of the dipole.